Unemployment Down, Job Integration Stalling
Fatima is 23. She searched for a job for months, then stopped. Not because she does not want to work, but because she no longer sees where to look. In official statistics, she has disappeared from the category of the unemployed. She now belongs to what economists call the “potential labor force.”
Karim, meanwhile, works a few hours a week in a restaurant, with no visibility beyond the following month. Technically, he is counted as employed. In reality, his income is insufficient, and so are his working hours. These two situations—the silent withdrawal of Fatima and the functional precarity of Karim—capture what traditional labor market indicators have long failed to measure. The new labor force survey by the High Commission for Planning, EMO 2026, seeks to address this gap.
The strict unemployment rate for the first quarter of 2026 stands at 10.8%. It is the most cited figure, but also the least revealing. It stems from a restrictive definition: only those without a job, immediately available, and actively seeking work are counted as unemployed. Everything else—discouragement, involuntary part-time work, waiting without active search—falls outside this indicator. It measures only the immediate tension in the labor market.
More telling still: out of 27.77 million Moroccans of working age, only 11.6 million actually participate in the labor market. The participation rate does not exceed 41.8%. In other words, nearly six out of ten people remain outside the labor market. The problem therefore begins even before the question of unemployment arises.
The most striking imbalance concerns women: their participation rate stands at 17.5%, compared to 66% for men. This gap is not new, nor is it explained by a lack of interest. The World Bank’s Growth and Employment report, published in April 2026, details the mechanisms: restrictive social norms, the near absence of workplace childcare facilities (fewer than 10% of firms offer them), and documented hiring biases—even when female candidates are objectively more qualified.
As a result, women account for only 21% of the labor force. This is not just another statistic, but a sustained loss of productive potential over decades. 22.5%: The Underutilization Rate, the Indicator to Watch
The new survey goes beyond measuring unemployment. It aggregates the 1.25 million strictly unemployed, the 671,000 underemployed (those working fewer hours than desired), and the 884,000 individuals in the “halo” of unemployment. The result: a composite underutilization rate of 22.5%. More than one in five active individuals is in a situation where work is lacking, either partially or entirely. This is twice the official unemployment rate—and likely the key indicator to monitor.
Youth: The Stark Numbers
Unemployment reaches 29.2% among 15–24-year-olds, with nearly 45% in a situation of underutilization. In other words, almost one in two young people is either unemployed, underemployed, or discouraged. Entry into working life is fragmented: delayed, unstable, and often outside formal channels. The World Bank, in Scaling the Atlas, highlights structural causes: training systems disconnected from real needs, constrained mobility, and local labor markets too narrow to absorb graduates. This is not a cyclical crisis, but a persistent bottleneck.
Khadija MASMOUDI
